Insomnia

By Sonia Sygaco

Wide awake in the dead of the night, I struggle to dispel these thoughts. They come, rumbling ideas soon accumulating into wisdom.

I belong to the emerging generation of Filipinos, whose lives have made a turn about. For me nights are like mornings with a mind who never gets tired. I try to close my eyes but instead images flash before me. Tossing in bed, I watch the window glass of the long dark hours blending with the light.

Like a walking zombie with my inability to sleep, I have become a listless dreamer. My ambitions of trying to redeem my national heritage and my dignity have triggered this sleeping disorder. Drown from my thoughts; I do steal time writing at night to release this artistic inevitability. A philosophy, “A life of intensity and meaning follows a life of harmony.”

Everyone has a vision, yet a vision becomes meaningless until one will know his beginnings. The retelling of the tale of Jose Rizal, our national hero who penned the illuminating words in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo shaped a new consciousness. Fighters like Bonifacio, Lapu-Lapu, Diego and Gabriela Silang who were restlessness warriors had wrestled freedom in their hands. Even the paralytic Apolinario Mabini, in his sleepless mind far reaching the next century of Ninoy Aquino and the rest of the Martial law fighters had awaken the sleeping people. These mind shapers revealed truth for which we learned from their principles.

My inability to sleep perhaps is product of over thinking, awareness of being vigilant. I do not think of rebellion or having thoughts of insurrection. Like a ghost haunting my sleeplessness presents a deeper perspective in life.

This insomnia is a journeying of conviction, inspirational I may say for it means believing oneself. I may have developed this inner sensibility in the process of growing up. It changes as I become more mature. For like others, I have this unending courage for fighting, even if at the end I am the loser. What’s important is I have done something and allowed change to take place. A verbal gymnast who preaches without actions suffers from spiritual blindness and from spiritual deafness. As Teodoro M. Locsin expresses, “Changed not in the sense of being reformed, but as a man is changed after a profound experience.”

You may witness that the young Filipinos are not sleeping on their rights; they have forged their identity in a sovereign nation by the Edsa Revolution. That revolution many of you may not been born yet or may have been offshore. The Edsa spirit liberated us from our older beliefs, our faint voices becoming louder. We are not ashamed to be called Filipinos. For being a Filipino is a trademark of being industrious and being patient.

It is true that most of us back home dream of migrating, to a land they will be called strangers, where it demands a crucial decision between cultures, running risk whether to embrace both or discard the other. These visionaries opt to find greener pastures because they are the builders of a new nation.

Migrants are the backbone of the Philippine economy. For outsiders the value of supporting our extended families seem strange, very strange indeed but only the hearts of Filipinos know its significance. There is this prophesy that one day all Filipino strangers will return home. They will clasp their arms to mother nation who shall embrace her lost generation. For this Diaspora is temporary, as generations after generations will trace their ancestry.

The solitude and loneliness in faraway places reminded you so much closer to home. But home could be your memories when every morning, you find appreciation as your backyard neighbor would greet you with a smile. When you were sick, you remembered someone watching over you or that simple gesture of request when relatives rushed in to assist you. You missed the gathering of friends in weekends where all of you lazily talked about life and the future. Or counting your attendance to every town fiesta where every guest was welcome. This was your way of life, the place you grew up with.

Filipinos can even live the worst of life. Calamities and unfortunate events have never missed us, always hitting our backs that make us resilient and durable. We remain strong even stoic. We may bend to strong winds but we never break. This is because our values are molded from the religious foundation, taking pride of being a Christian nation among our Asian neighbors.

Yes, we are sleepless Filipinos, fighting for recognition. We remain the only nation in Asia with high literacy rate in English. Call centers worldwide are relocating their services here as well foreign publishers in contract-training for on-line work jobs.

We also grace our abilities in transcription business, in web designs, good computer programmers. It was Diosdado Banatao, a Filipino, who first made single chip graphical user interface accelerator to boost internet speed in computers. While controversial Agapito Flores of Bulacan received a French fluorescent bulb patent but sold his rights to General Electric Company. Fe del Mundo, the first Asian to join Harvard University School of Medicine, credited her works for inventing incubator and jaundice-relieving equipment or Dr. Abelardo Aguilar who formulated Erthromycin antibiotics.

Gregorio Zora invented the videophone device and Pedro Flores, a Philippine immigrant in the United States mass produced the first yoyos in his small factory in California. In the field of music, Roberto Del Rosario had many sleepless nights inventing the karaoke and spearheaded various inventions of the piano.

Another unrecognized contribution in space invention was Eduardo San Juan who worked at Lockheed Corporation. San Juan conceptualized ideas for Moon Buggy used by astronaut Neil Armstrong among others for exploration. These scientists with their inability to sleep and creativity had given so much inspiration.

When the perfect moment comes, those who continue to light the candles of hope, for those who give immortal ideas of liberation and honor have reasons of keeping their faith that the “Philippine is worth dying for.”

For those who have come to a realization, this undying spirit insomnia continues to live on. Then the new leaders being watchful will emerge as empowered people, with fearless views and fearful to God. Then the world can witness rebirth of a Philippine nation.

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About the Author:

Sonia B. SyGaco holds a degree in Mass Communication in Silliman University and currently enrolls in the creative writing master’s program in the same school. She contributes for the Sun Star Daily in Dumaguete City and for FilipinoWriter.Com. She is a fellow of the 14th Iligan National Writers Workshop and the 24th Cornelio Faigao Memorial Writers Workshop in the Philippines.